UPDATE: Lugar, Nunn receive nation's highest civilian defense award

INDIANAPOLIS - U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia received the nation's highest civilian defense award Monday for their work to reduce nuclear threats.

Lugar and Nunn authored a law creating the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in 1992, which has led to the destruction of thousands of warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile silos and other weapons.

"What Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar understood," said Ash Carter, deputy secretary of defense, "was that the nuclear systems that supported the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union, were fundamentally social and human and that we were witnessing for the first time in history the disintegration of a social system that had nuclear weapons in its possession."

The work has won them the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, which was presented by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at National Defense University. The award is presented "for exceptionally distinguished service of significance" to the defense department.

To emphasize the importance of the program, Carter asked the audience to imagine a world where Nunn-Lugar didn't exist.

"Imagine the alternative if loose nukes from the former Soviet Union had gotten into Bin Laden's hands, into the hands of other terrorists with odious causes," Carter said. "Or a host of nations that might feel obligated to go nuclear themselves once the proliferation floodgates had been open. Contemplate all that and you see the enduring value of Nunn-Lugar."

President Barack Obama also talked about the Nunn-Lugar program and spoke warmly about Lugar. Obama reminisced about the first foreign trip he took as a senator, a trip with Lugar to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan to tour Cooperative Threat Reduction programs.

"What you learn when traveling with Dick Lugar is that the more remote the place is and the more obscure the facility is, the bigger a rock star Dick Lugar is," Obama said.

And, even though the program started to disarm former Soviet states, Nunn-Lugar has expanded to over 80 countries. Panetta said it's at a critical stage now.

"It's evolved from a focus on nuclear infrastructure in the former Soviet Union to encompass a broader range of counter-WMD efforts across Asia and Africa and the Middle East," he said. "And despite the victories in the former Soviet Union, this program remains as critical as ever."